factory, and when they entered further conversation was summarily prevented by Mr. Seiden himself. 

 "Sternsilver," Mr. Seiden bellowed at him, "where was you?" 

 "Couldn't I get oncet in a while a few minutes I should eat my lunch, Mr. Seiden?" Sternsilver replied. "I am entitled to eat, ain't I, Mr. Seiden?" 

 "'Entitled to eat,'  sagt er, when the operators is carrying on so they pretty near tear the place to pieces already!" Seiden exclaimed. "A foreman must got to be in the workroom, lunch-hour oder no lunch-hour, Sternsilver. Me, I do everything here. I get no assistance at all." 

 He walked off toward the office; and after Sternsilver had started up the motor, which supplied power for the sewing-machines, he followed his employer. 

 "Mr. Seiden," he began, "I don't know what comes over you lately. Seemingly nothing suits you at all—and me I am all the time doing my very best to help you out." 

 "Is that so?" Seiden replied ironically. "Since when is the foreman helping out the boss if he would go and spend a couple hours for his lunch, making a hog out of himself, Sternsilver?" 

 "I ain't making a hog out of myself, Mr. Seiden," Philip continued. "If I am going out of the factory for my lunch, Mr. Seiden, I got my reasons for it." 

 Seiden glared at his foreman for some minutes; ordinarily Sternsilver's manner was diffident to the point of timidity, and this newborn courage temporarily silenced Mr. Seiden. 

 "The way you are talking, Sternsilver," he said at last, "to hear you go on any one would think you are the boss and I am the foreman." 

 "In business, yes," Philip rejoined, "you are the boss, Mr. Seiden; but outside of business a man could be a Mensch as well as a foreman. Ain't it?" 

 Seiden stared at the unruffled Sternsilver, who allowed no opportunity for a retort by immediately going on with his dissertation. 

 "Even operators also," he said. "Hillel Fatkin is an operator, y'understand, but he has got anyhow a couple hundred dollars in the savings bank; and when it comes to family, Mr. Seiden, he's from decent, respectable people in the old country. His own grandfather was a rabbi, y'understand." 

 "What the devil's that got to do with me, Sternsilver?" 

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